What Fools These Mortals Be
by FlowerCrazy
Summary: The Decepticons take over, violently, making most of a large continent their playground. Where were the Autobots when humanity needed them most? How does a group of humans led by a waitress survive in the aftermath?
1. Chapter 1

**This is going to be the first of three stories. This first one is heavily human tilted with an OC. (I see that face you just made there.) But I ask that you give the story a chance. I've been using this story as a way to learn good writing techniques and story plotlines, etc. It feels like it's been an uphill battle for me so far but I'm slowly learning as my Beta Reader beats me over the head consistently with her clue-by-four.**

**Speaking of my Beta - I would like to put out a HUGE thank you to Vivienne Grainger for helping me and not giving up on me when I'm sure I was being particularly dense. I'd also like to thank Gixxer Pilot for their encouragement and thoughts on this story too!**

**So, please give this a read and review. Reviews feed the muse and make me a better writer in the end.**

**(Warning: This chapter contains a scene or two that some may find disturbing or graphic. (Since these scenes are few and far between throughout the story, I did not feel it necessary to make this story M rated since the scenes are non-sexual in nature.) I will place warnings on any following chapters that may have similar content.) **

* * *

"Mal?" came a hushed voice from the doorway.

She felt her brain begin to engage as Mal realized someone was whispering her name.

"This had better be good, Mark," she grumbled, cracking an eye open. She saw the light of a lantern filling the doorway outside the room she had taken refuge in to catch a few hours of much needed sleep. It cast strange shadows on the walls and illuminated the face of her "historian."

Lifting her head from the pillow, she slipped a hand out from under her covers, and fumbled for the pocket watch that sat on top of her pack. Squinting at it, she saw she'd been asleep for only an hour.

With a sigh, she buried her face in the coat-turned-pillow with a stifled groan.

"Sorry, Mal, but I think you should take a look at what I found," he said, a touch of hesitation in his voice.

She turned on her side and managed to extract herself from a tangle of blankets as she sat up. Her feet, still laced into her boots, crunched on bits of concrete and broken glass.

After a moment, Mal heaved herself to a standing position and staggered her way towards the door. Mark, wisely choosing not to say anything else, led her down the hallway to another room that was filled with file cabinets and shelves full of dusty boxes.

Dominating the center of the room was a large drafting table covered with several unrolled blueprints, a map of Arizona laid out on top. "I think I found something quite interesting, right about…here," Mark said as he moved over to the map, thrusting his finger down on a spot. "It might even be worth checking out."

Mal leaned over the map to see what he was pointing at, but then backed her head away a little to focus her eyes. She stifled a mental curse at herself and the tumble she'd taken down a hillside a few weeks back that caused her to break her only pair of glasses.

"What am I looking at, Mark?" she asked, her pale eyes flicking upward to search out his face.

He pushed a manila folder at her across the top of the map. "Here's the information that was filed on the site. It's a ways north, almost on the border of Utah and New Mexico but according to the schematics – they're about twenty years old - there's an underground water supply and permits were filed for hydro-turbine power generators to be built to supply power to a small township to the north-east." There was an excitement in his voice and she watched as he clasped his hands together as if he were trying to keep a tight rein on his exuberance, and failing.

Mal straightened and looked at Mark, "And this means…what to me?" she asked. She had an idea forming in the back of her brain but she wanted to see where Mark's logic would take them first.

"Well, if the power station is still operational, we would have access to a source of energy that can't be tampered with since its underground, thus untraceable. We could tap into it for our own uses. Plus the underground water supply would be unspoiled by anything topside." Mark shifted restlessly; anxious for her to approve of his find.

She looked up towards his face for a long moment then picked the thick folder up off the table. Opening it, she turned her attention to it as she slowly flipped through a few of the pages, pretending to read what was there.

"Not bad. Let me read through more of this tomorrow after I've had some sleep. First, we'd need to find out if anyone knows anything about hydro-whatsit generators because I sure as hell don't," she said, snapping the folder shut and tucking it under her arm.

"Keep this under wraps for now. If it looks promising on paper and we can find someone with the basic knowledge we need, we'll send a scouting party out to look at the place. See what other information you can dig up for me, and find another location in the meantime."

Mark nodded with that stupid grin on his face. His sandy blond hair had flopped forward and was hanging down in his eyes.

Mal sighed, "Get Tracy to give you a haircut. I'm going back to bed." With that, she turned on her heel and left.

* * *

Mal didn't bother with a light on the return trip. It was only forty-two steps down the hallway to get from one room to the other.

She slumped back down onto her makeshift bed before tossing the file onto the floor next to her backpack. Reaching over, she lifted the blankets up and slid back under them, finding they had gone cold in her absence. The hour of sleep she'd had was just enough to take the edge off, but not enough to make up for the sleep she'd lost in the past few days.

She'd been doing so well to get to sleep the first time. She sighed.

Laying in the dark in her underground room, she found the silence deafening. Memories resurfaced into that silence, and old wounds proved they had yet to fade. Sighing again, she flipped over onto her back and stared upward.

Once she had settled, thousands of tiny memory snapshots began to flick past behind her eyes, like a video on fast forward.

The last of the tribe had just managed to get here under the radar earlier this evening, in what they'd come to call "den moves." After their first successful migration two years ago, someone had joked that the whole operation had reminded them of the TV show "Meerkat Manor" from Animal Planet, where den moves were depicted as being both difficult and dangerous. The name stuck.

A move required days of preparation and packing once a new den area was secured. They would begin to move the group a section at a time until all seventy-three of them were under cover in their new surroundings.

At one time, they'd numbered almost a hundred.

Mal threw off her covers with a grunt of frustration and sat up. What she really wanted to throw off was the memories that last thought conjured.

Groping for her pack, she reached inside and found the full flask of bourbon Chris had insisted she take earlier that night. Unscrewing the cap, she put it to her lips, tipped it back, and felt the amber colored liquid burn a slow path down her throat as she swallowed. While she was on duty, which was twenty-four, seven, three sixty-five, Mal couldn't afford to consume anything that might alter her reaction time or judgment.

But right now, she had the down time, she had the booze, and she needed the sleep.

As she let the precious liquid settle in the pit of her empty stomach, she grimaced. She had been the last one to the new den. The previous forty-eight hours had found her making the three trips to escort everyone and their gear from their last location to this one. By the time she arrived with the last group, sure that nothing and no one got left behind, work on the new site had already begun. That would keep everyone except the Watchers inside for a day or two, and that meant Mal could finally sleep.

Mal took another swig, grimaced as it went down, and screwed the cap back on before burying the flask in the bottom of her bag. She sat there for some time, elbows on her knees, one hand absently fiddling with the end of her long braid, head hanging a little.

As she waited for the booze to dull things enough for her to get back to sleep, her thoughts turned to the night it all ended almost three years before. The night that everyone's life either ended or changed was one of her most vivid and unforgettable memories…one that still haunted her dreams.

She had been waiting tables, working a double shift at the Los Portales Café and Gas Station on a highway forty miles outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico that night…

.

.

.

"What'll it be, stranger?" she asked the trucker, sitting at the counter. She'd seen him in here a few times over the last six months. He always flirted with her and he tipped well.

"Well hello, Miss South Dakota. You gonna leave this life behind and run away with me?" he teased.

Mal snorted, "Tempting…but no. Now what can I get you?" He gave her a mock wounded look then rattled off his order.

The chimes on the front door sounded and Mal looked up as a couple came in. She had on short heels and the uniform of a middle-class business woman. Now the purse however, that was a sight. Leopard print and huge. There should have been a law against things that ugly.

The man with her was dressed in business casual and seemed a few years older. Maybe putting up with her bad taste in fashion had drained the youth from him.

Writing down the last of the trucker's order, she smiled. "All right, I'll get your order in." She poured him a cup of coffee and set it in front of him.

The drunk at the end of the counter waved a hand at the TV in the corner, "Turn it up, will ya," he slurred. "I can' 'ear."

With a sigh, Mal grabbed the remote and hit the volume button a few times. "Happy?" she snarked. He didn't respond.

She set the remote back down before grabbing up a few menus and moved over to the Ugly Purse Lady, putting on a pleasant smile. "Good evening. I'm Mal and I'll be your waitress. Can I start you off with something to drink this evening?" she asked as she handed the couple their menus.

The woman immediately opened her menu and began looking, "Oh Charley, I don't think there's anything in here I can eat," she whined. She set down her menu, turned to her purse and began digging around in it.

From what Mal could see, she looked like she might have everything from lipstick to the Crown Jewels in there. The lady finally came up with some little booklet that looked like it was from an expensive diet plan "as seen on TV." She flipped through it as the man rolled his eyes heavenward.

"I'll have coffee and a glass of water. She'll just have water for now, okay?" said the man, giving his companion an exasperated look. "Come back in a few minutes to take our order."

"All right," said Mal, giving the woman another look before leaving the table. She passed the other waitress and rolled her eyes. Marsha giggled a little as she went behind the counter to put in the order she'd just taken from another trucker Mal vaguely recognized.

It had been a busy day. This late in the evening, just past ten, it was finally slowing down. There hadn't been a cloud in the sky all day, and the weather had been nice enough to draw travelers and sight-seers to this out-of-the-way eatery on a little-used highway.

Brodie, their cook, was in the back, humming to himself as he scurried along, fixing up an order, laying out the next and doing his best to keep up with the flow of things.

A distant noise caught the edge of Mal's attention. It soon resolved into a low rumble from outside, but the highway had been busy with truck traffic all day. Maybe it was some hot-rod with glass pipes, or a deep bass thumping away on an expensive sound system.

Mal walked past a drunk at a booth and poured coffee in his cup, though he looked passed out in his seat, head down on the table. "Wake up, Luke," she said quietly, "or I'll have to ask you to leave."

The man grunted and sat up, looking slightly scruffy. He took his cup and drained half of the hot liquid before setting it back down.

"I don't know how you can stand to drink it that hot," she said.

As he looked up at her with a smirk, Mal simply sighed and shook her head, and looked into his cup, ready to refill it. There liquid was rippling away from the edges.

That was when Mal noticed that the rumble hadn't quit and was growing louder. Soon the cup began to vibrate, followed by the low buzz and clatter of plates clinking against each other and hard surfaces.

Turning her head, she looked out through the windows that surrounded the café. Her gaze froze to the east. White light blossomed out of the desert in the direction of Albuquerque.

Dazed, Mal didn't even realize the coffee pot had slipped from her fingers to crash loudly on the floor. Startled, several of the patrons stared at her then looked in the direction she was facing.

The room filled with gasps of surprise and the sounds of chairs scraping as people left their tables to stare out the window.

"What is that?"

"Oh my God!"

"What's going on?"

Then the electricity went out, causing Marsha to let out a stifled scream. Brodie cursed somewhere in the kitchen and stomped out to see what the commotion was.

"Dammit, Charley, my cell phone just died. I can't even get it to turn on. Did you charge it?" whined Ugly Purse Lady.

"Mine's dead too," said the trucker who had flirted with Mal earlier.

No one moved, transfixed by the blue-white light before them as it began to spread outward, away from the city.

Suddenly, it felt as if someone else had stepped into Mal's body.

Grabbing Brodie by the hand, Mal hollered, "Brodie! Hey, Brodie! Dammit! Start barking orders! Get them downstairs, into the freezer!"

"What?"

"Everybody! Freezer! Now!" she shouted to him. She let go of him and pulled the two truckers nearest her towards the door leading to the freezer.

"You heard her. Everyone…Downstairs. In the freezer, _now_!_"_ he bellowed as he turned, and put his massive arms outward as if trying to herd them like sheep towards the back of the café.

"My purse!" Ugly Purse Lady cried, dashing away from Charley's side.

"Leave it!" Mal heard him yell after her.

"I can't! It's got all my things in it!" she shouted as Charley broke away from the group and made a dash for her. She dove into the booth to retrieve the awful thing, only to knock it to the floor, scattering items under the table.

Mal had no more attention to pay to them as she got to the stairs ahead of everyone else, still dragging the two truckers with her. Hurrying to the bottom, she dashed across the short space to the freezer, her hands out in front of her, finding the door when her fingers slammed into the cold steel.

"This way!" she said urgently, her hands sliding along it to find the handle and wrench it open. "_Come on!_" she shouted, feeling the panic rise up in her throat, trying to choke her.

She felt them shuffling past her. She touched, pushed, guided, did everything she could to convey people into the freezer.

Finally she smelled Brodie's greasy apron, then felt his big hand grip her arm. "Inside," he panted.

With that, there was no time left. The expanding blue-white blossom from Albuquerque lit up the cellar. She felt Brodie put a hand between her shoulder blades as he slammed the door behind them.

The roar that followed a split second later shook the building to its foundation. Food fell off the shelves to land on the seventeen hapless individuals crammed into the freezer as they struggled to fight down panic in the dark, with the world shaking around them.

.

.

.

In that freezer, she'd heard Luke mumbling to himself as he began to go through DT's, random but fervent prayers, men and women alike weeping. The smell of body odor – seventeen people in a freezer! - and urine: someone, several someones in fact had pissed themselves in fright.

Mal could remember it all. She always would.

They stayed where they were for twelve long hours. When they made their way out, at the back door they found a small pile of animal bones and a dog collar. Mal thought it might have been the dog that used to hang around, begging for scraps.

Silence hung over the seventeen survivors, as if speaking might make the nightmare before them real.

They made their way around to the front of the café to the gas station only to find what appeared to be a family of five outside of their car. They could only assume that they were family, though, since what remained were two large skulls, three smaller ones, bones, and clothes.

Startling above all else was how barren the landscape was, for as far as the eye could see in any direction. All forms of plant life that formerly grew along the road and around the café were completely gone.

Inside the café, there was no usable food left anywhere above ground. Everything that had once been edible was reduced to piles of dust.

They found two piles of bones and dust near the dropped handbag. There proved to be nothing in the bag worth dying for…except perhaps the hope that its owner would need it and its contents when this was all over.

But there wasn't going to be an "over."

Fleeing the café, the group discovered that the devastating effects of that blue-white light reached over fifty miles farther west. Once past that boundary, biological life began to appear again, weakly at first; growing stronger the farther they got from Albuquerque.

Days later, as their little group began searching for survivors; they came to understand that there was no more "America."

That memory was another that would be branded into her brain for all time, a memory that explained how everything had gone horribly wrong.

.

.

.

"Do you think those jets that flew over earlier were Air Force?" asked Mike, the truck driver that had flirted with Mal only a few days before.

"Not ours," Brodie growled as they walked cautiously past the outskirts of Grants, New Mexico. "They didn't have the right markings on the underside."

Mike simply rolled his eyes at Brodie but said nothing else.

After they'd gotten several blocks into town, Mal whispered, "Guys, something's wrong. Where are all the people? Even if they were hiding in their houses, wouldn't we have been challenged by now?"

Brodie nodded but said nothing as they scurried between the meager spots of cover, everyone doing their best to keep hidden and watch for signs of life.

The sound of a jet passing closely overhead made them all look up from the shelter of a grove of trees.

What came next sounded like metal squealing as it was ripped apart and the massive grinding of multiple gears, followed by the ground vibrating as something heavy landed. A high pitched squealing noise with bass undertones rang out from a few blocks away.

A second set of sounds, different in pitch, responded to the first. It sounded like someone had logged into an old fashioned modem with the resounding squelches and squeals, tossed about with feral sounding growls and clicking noises. It made Mal's skin crawl.

"What the hell was that?" whispered one of the men with them.

"I don't know," responded Mal quietly, "But I think we should get below ground somehow."

They looked at her like she was nuts but she paid them no mind. Near the sidewalk was a sewer grate. On top of it was a concrete slab with a manhole cover over it. "Get the crowbar over there and shift the cover aside. We need to get in there quickly and get that lid back on. We can see through sewer grates without being spotted," she offered.

Brodie shook his head, "And if someone or something spots us, we're sitting ducks."

"We're sitting ducks up here and we'll be spotted for sure. At least down there, we've got a chance to see what's really going on, maybe without being seen." She looked from one to another until finally she got nods all around, though Brodie just scowled at her as he nodded.

It was quick work to get the lid off. They'd had several good spring rains this year and it must have cleaned trash out fairly recently. With a grinding of metal, the lid was shifted back into place.

Using a compass, Brodie got them pointed in the direction where they'd heard the noises. It didn't take long before the sound of heavy footfalls was combined with the earlier bizarre voice-noise.

Before any of their crew could get into place to look out the street gutters, human screams rang through the still air above them. There was a scramble as the ten of them found a way to see what was going on.

Mal was lifted so she could peek out through one of the grates. Held within massive cage structures were hundreds of people, all ages from babes to the elderly, from people who looked like they'd been ripped right out of their hospital beds to school children straight from the classroom. Guarding them were mechanized creatures and towering metal men. A flash of a purple emblem across the chest of one solidified the thought in her stunned mind.

_Decepticons. _

Mal, along with almost anyone else in the United States knew what that symbol on these beings' chests stood for. Like everyone else, she'd heard the rumors about the Autobots and the Decepticons; had watched the Battle of Chicago live on television ten years before.

But none of that had taken place in her back yard, and the Autobots had taken care of the Decepticons, cleaned up the mess, left the world safe. She didn't pay much attention once the hub-bub had died down. She had other things to worry about, like working double shifts just to stay afloat.

But here stood multiple Decepticons, having rounded up the citizens of this town. They were acting as if they were now in control. Where had they come from? Where were the Autobots?

She watched in horror as several of the 'cons, almost human-sized, began pulling people out one by one, scanning them with a strange light. The humans were pushed into one of two containers.

Within moments, Mal saw the difference between the two. The healthy, strong, able-bodied were all shoved into one; the rest – the aged, the infirm, and dear God the children and infants – in the other.

Women screamed as their babies were torn from their arms. The elderly held on to these young children, trying to comfort them as they wailed. Men fought against these creatures and were either knocked out or, in one case, shot on the spot, body left lying in the middle of the street.

Mal forced herself not to look away. Someone should bear witness to what was being done.

When the sorting was complete, several of the Decepticons transformed into flying ships, took to the air, extended grappling hooks, and caught the bars of the cage with the able-bodied in it. Screaming people clinging to the bars of their prison, the Decepticons and their captives dwindled into the sky.

The remaining 'cons looked to the last cage. One walked over to the door, towering two stories over the humans. "Now comes the fun part," it said, in perfect idiomatic English. "We're going to let you out. If you can escape us, we'll let you go free. If not, we'll have had our fun. And you..." It trailed off, and grinned.

It was fear and resignation, not determination, that showed on the faces of those that remained as the door to their cage was ripped off.

Some were kicked and thrown around, screaming, used like a sports ball by the Decepticons. Others, mostly those too young, too old, or too infirm to run, were torn apart. Many were used as target practice, shot with weapons that turned the fleeing humans into nothing more than piles of bones and dust.

Finally, unable to watch any longer, Mal lowered herself and she huddled against the far wall of the storm drain, hands pressed against her eyes.

The smell of vomit filled her nose, mingling with the scent of blood and torn flesh that drifted down through the sewer grate above. She needed to move but her shaking legs wouldn't respond. The sound of someone screaming right next to one of the sewer grates made her heart slam to a stop in her chest and she jerked to her feet, stumbling back the way they had come, pushing on those in front of her to make them move all the faster.

The trek back to the vehicles and the seven people who had stayed behind was silent, grimly, shatteringly silent.

"What did you find?" Marsha asked, and Mal only shook her head. She found enough words to croak, "Let's go. Let's just go."

They found and pillaged a gas station, hiding their vehicles in the repair bays, taking every edible substance they could find, and most of the automotive supplies as well. When the others protested the theft, the story of what they had seen came out, in jerking, stuttered, choppy sentences.

There they spent the next two days until they went back to Grants to see what was left. They helped themselves to supplies there, since there was no one left in the town to stop them from taking what they needed, and no one to use it in their stead.

Since that day, they kept out of sight as much as possible. The Decepticons had sensors and they'd learned the hard way that electronics were to be avoided at all costs.

They lived off what was left behind, breaking into houses and businesses for supplies: the dead, frequently encountered as piles of bones or worse, had no use for what kept them alive.

They even picked up a few stragglers here and there.

They'd managed to stay hidden and on the move for almost two months before the stress began to take its toll.

.

.

.

The night after they'd narrowly escaped notice for the third time, sighting a Decepticon on a ridge before it saw them, Mal woke to the sound of quiet sobs. She got up and moved to the far edge of the group, locating the one in trouble. To her surprise, it was the tough old cook from the diner.

"Brodie?" she'd called out to him softly, squatting down to face him. "Brodie? What's wrong?" Slowly she reached out and put her hand on his upper arm.

"Nothing," came a strangled voice from under his blanket. "Nothing."

"Brodie. Come on. Talk to me."

He pulled back the blankets back far enough to stare at her. "You remember the first time we saw them? You remember what they did to those people, those children, and the babies? You remember their screams?"

Mal swallowed the bile that had risen in her throat. "I'll never forget, Brodie."

"You remember the second time? You remember how, when we ran, Claire just couldn't go any faster? You remember what they did to her when they caught up to her? You remember her screams?" She could see his hands shaking as they gripped the blanket.

"I can't, Brodie. I can't. You know that," she said, feeling bile rise again in her throat. She couldn't afford to throw up. They hadn't enough food as it was.

"How some of them screamed as they melted. Holy shit, I'll never be free of that." Brodie propped himself up on his elbow and rubbed his face with his free hand. Before Mal could respond, he reached out and caught Mal's forearm. "But you know what's worst, Mal?"

"Brodie," she said, trying to keep the calm in her voice, "don't do this to yourself."

"What's worst is knowin' that I'm right back in the middle of the war, Mal. This is war. And this ain't any war where honor's at stake. This is life or death, Mal. Period."

"Don't you think I know that, Brodie?" she asked, while trying to keep her voice down as tears welled up in her eyes. "I think about it, every minute of every day."

The fires of insanity died out of his eyes. He dropped his hand from her forearm and said, very calmly, "I don't wanna live through another war. I never truly left Vietnam…it was…I don't wanna go through that ever again."

And with that, he had laid back down and pulled the blankets over his head. The conversation was over.

He was calm, efficient, and as bossy as hell the next day, just as always.

That night, he'd excused himself from the small campfire they'd dared to light, walked a short distance from the group, and put a bullet through his brain.

They didn't bother to bury him. With self-preservation in mind, they'd doused the campfire and quickly moved from the area for fear that the shot might attract the attention of any Decepticon in the area. The coyotes would take care of his remains.

Several days later, Marsha had a nervous breakdown and began screaming hysterically. One of the truck drivers managed to knock her out to keep her quiet; they couldn't take the chance of being discovered. But she didn't seem right after that. She talked to herself, shied away from anyone that came near her, and began silently weeping at the drop of a hat. They woke one morning, several days after her breakdown, to find her bedroll empty. Mal spent several hours looking for her but there had been no trace.

After that, Mal had been truly alone.

Finally, the booze began to kick in, and the memories to fade. Mal sighed, stretched out and absently reached up to pull the blankets off the back of the couch. She snuggled down into her only remaining comfort, and begged a God she no longer believed in that her sleep would be dreamless.

TBC -


	2. Chapter 2

**(Well this chapter took a little longer to post than I'd hoped. There was a week long trip to Montana and down through Wyoming somewhere in the time span between Ch1 and Ch2.**

**This is a longer chapter. Hopefully you'll start to get a better feel of 'everyday life' as the survivors know it. I'm still learning quite a bit about writing, and will reiterate that this is trial and error for me as I learn. But I'd like to think I'm getting a little better thanks to my wonderful Beta. **

**I can promise that with Ch3, the pace begins to pick up a bit, so stick with me people as I hope this story draws you in and keeps you coming back for more. Please feel free to review. Good critisism helps build a better writer. Reviews also feed the muse and are much appreciated. Thanks to those who have reviewed so far. Your words of encouragement were fantastic.**

**So, on with Ch2. Enjoy!****)**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

"Pew pew pew!" came the young male voice. "We got you, Decepti-creep!"

"Yeah! We got you," called a second, shyer female voice. "Now you have to play dead."

Mal stopped in her tracks and looked around. Two pair of eyes peeked out from behind a barricade of chairs in the middle of the cafeteria floor, a bed sheet draped over the top of them.

"Oh yeah?" she said with a grin on her face. She sidestepped to a table and set down the file she'd gotten from Mark a few days before, and then turned to face her "attackers." "Says who?"

"Says me!" cried out the male voice and she saw the orange toy rifle sticking out from under the sheet, pointed in her direction. "Pew pew pew!"

Scrunching up her face to take on the visage of a snarling Decepticon, she spread her fingers and curled them to make imaginary claws and stomped menacingly across the floor. "You can't hurt me, puny humans," she growled.

There was a squeal of excitement from inside the fabricated fort and Henry appeared from behind the makeshift wall, pulling the trigger frantically on the toy gun. "Pew pew pew!" he shouted.

Still Mal advanced as she saw Kitty, his little sister, scramble out from between the legs of the chairs on her hands and knees to hide behind Henry. She was squealing and clinging to his legs as she peeked out from behind them. Henry continued to valiantly hold his ground and shoot at her. At the last moment, Mal slapped a hand over her heart and groaned. The kids went silent and watched in fascination as she dramatically died, falling to the floor, arms splayed out, and eyes closed.

"Is it dead?" Kitty whispered.

"I don't know. We should go check," replied Henry.

Mal heard him shift one of the chairs aside and the soft shuffle of footsteps came closer as they advanced on her. Something jabbed into her chest and she resisted the urge to wince.

"Yeah, I think it's dead," Henry whispered.

"Oh," came Kitty's reply. Before she could finish her sentence, Mal reared up, roaring, and grabbed both children as they shrieked in surprise.

The tickle-fight that ensued for the following few minutes probably looked to anyone else like a writhing mass of arms and legs that continually emitted gasping squeaks and squeals. Finally, when both kids were out of breath and Mal was sure she had at least two new bruises, she called a cease-fire.

Panting a little, Mal lifted Kitty out of her lap and straightened her clothes. "You better take your mother's bed sheets back before she comes looking for them."

Kitty smiled shyly at Mal, turned and grabbed the sheet from the fort, pulling it off as she ran towards the door. It dragged along the floor behind her and Mal sighed. She was pretty sure Kitty's mother would have a word or two with her about properly instructing her children on returning her sheets to her.

Her eyes went back to Henry. He looked slightly out of breath, his cheeks flushed. "Did you have fun?" she asked, smiling.

He grinned and nodded. "Yes ma'am."

"Good. But tell me what you would have done if I'd been a real Decepticon," she said, still sitting on the floor so that she was eye level with the young boy.

His shoulders sagged with embarrassment and he shuffled his feet, eyes looking down at the floor. "Don't draw attention to myself. Don't attack unless attacked. And if I take one down, make sure to shoot it in the weak points at the eyes, the neck, and around the face before ever getting within arms' reach. If I can't do that safely, leave the area quickly before reinforcements arrive."

He sounded like he was reciting a school lesson. Mal reached out and took his hand, squeezing it. "Good. Don't worry. I know you were only playing. I just want you to be safe when you get older." She leaned down to bring her face within range of his downcast eyes and grinned. "Now, put the chairs away and go find your sister so she doesn't take all the blame for messing up your mother's bed sheets."

Henry flushed but smiled shyly in response to Mal's grin. Without another word, he quickly stacked the chairs and pushed them back into place. He ran out the door without a backwards glance, toy rifle slung across his shoulder.

She stood up and brushed herself off in order to straighten her clothes. Stretching, she worked out a few of the kinks she'd given herself while trying to hang onto two wiggling kids. Wincing at a sore spot just under her ribs, she rubbed her side as she moved back to the table where she'd left the folder.

Yup, that was definitely going to be a nice bruise by tomorrow, with Kitty's name on it.

Picking up the file where she'd left it, Mal straddled the bench next to the table. Looking around at the few windows that had their thermal blackout curtains pulled aside to let in the weak, late October sunlight, she noticed that the hospital cafeteria had warmed to a comfortable level. She let her eyes move around the rest of the room.

Tables and benches had been set up in the open space to accommodate all seventy-three of her people for the communal meals. The hall stood empty with people currently out on assigned tasks. Sounds coming from the kitchen told Mal that preparations had already begun for the evening meal.

Opening the file, Mal sat it on the bench in front of her and pulled out a stack of hand written reports. Her finger traveled down the detailed time schedule for the Watchers. Flipping to the next page, her eyes flicked over the list of what had been found for supplies, so far. The last page that she turned to was what needed her immediate attention: that was, thankfully, short, and nothing was of extreme importance at the moment, so she set the stack on the table for later.

She focused on the file, scanning over it as she flipped through the pages. It was quite in depth and only a quarter of what she read made any sense to her. Finally she had to admit to herself that she was way out of her depth.

A plate of what looked like rice and lizard meat, with canned vegetables mixed in, appeared on the table next to her. "You know, you shouldn't let those kids maul you like that. I swear it sounded like someone was trying to gut a couple of live piglets out here." Sarah, the head cook, paused as Mal looked up at her. "Eat that. You missed lunch."

"Thanks, but I would have been all right till supper. You didn't have to." Her stomach growled a little, telling both of them that she was a liar.

"What kind of cook would I be if I let you starve yourself? How can I keep you from looking like a bag of bones when all I have to feed you is lizard meat?" Sarah paused, and put her hands on her hips. "Speaking of which, when am I going to get a nice big fat deer to roast instead of lizards and squirrels?"

"Well maybe if she'd let me go out hunting more often, I'd be able to bring you back a nice big fat elk or antelope," came a male voice from right next to Mal's ear.

"Jesus Christ, Frank!" she yelped as she nearly leapt off the bench.

"Sorry," came the half-hearted reply from the Native American man, "but someone's got to keep you on your toes." He grinned as he straddled the bench, facing her.

"Yeah, well…I'd prefer you found other times to do it than right before I ate. You're lucky I didn't dump my plate on the floor or you'd be dealing with the Wrath of Sarah," Mal growled as she settled back on the bench and pulled her cooling meal towards her.

Sarah gave Frank the "evil eye," turned, and stalked back towards the kitchen where she could supervise those working in her personal domain.

Frank watched with a slight grin as Mal began to eat. "Mark tells me you're looking for someone who knows something about hydro-turbine power generators." His dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief.

Mal raised an eyebrow as she swallowed a mouthful of food. "Oh? And I suppose you're here to tell me you know all about them?"

His grin turned impish. "Nope, but I know someone who does. I'll tell you who if I can get taken off night watch this evening and you let me go hunting…alone."

She ground her teeth. "Dammit, Frank! Not this again! You know no one goes out alone!"

He held up his hands, "Hey, I'm sure you'll find out sooner or later who this person is. But I figured maybe you didn't want it being gossiped about yet." There was a sly grin curling up the corners of his mouth: he knew he had her between a rock and a hard place. She _could_ stand up at supper and ask everyone if they knew anything about this stuff, but then there would be gossip, then speculation and rumors. She'd spend more time dealing with busy bodies and trying to set the record straight than actually getting any work done.

"This is extortion or something," she grumbled under her breath, shoving another bite of food into her mouth and bouncing her teeth off rubbery, cooling lizard-meat strips. She tried to keep from making a face, finally swallowing most of it un-chewed to sigh, "Fine, but you're not to tell anyone else I let you do this."

She grabbed his arm when he looked like he was about to jump out of his seat to get a head start. "And you're to tell me which direction you're going before you leave."

He frowned at that slightly then let out a sigh as he started to stand a second time before she jerked him back into his seat. "_And_ you will have a set time to return to the den. You're out any later, I send out a search party, with instructions to bring you back trussed up like the turkey you are."

He rolled his eyes skyward as if to ask for patience. "All right all right! I get it! Jeesh, I knew you were an over-controlling anal-retentive bitch but I didn't know you were my mother too!"

"Get out of here before I change my mind, Chicken Hawk," Mal snapped, glaring half-heartedly.

He climbed off the bench and looked down at her. "That's 'White Eagle,' and you're pretty smart for a paleface flatlander," he said, with a sly grin. With that, he turned and headed towards the door. "Oh, it's Thomas you're looking for, by the way," he said over his shoulder.

"Thanks for that. Just promise me you'll come back in one piece, and with some red meat. That'll make me quite happy," she called after him.

Frank paused at the doorway to look back at Mal with that white-toothed grin showing brightly against his reddish brown skin. "Mal, you'll never be happy. I don't think it's in your nature. You're much too surly to ever be happy," he said, and gave her a wink before he disappeared into the hallway.

* * *

"Man, how far are we from Flagstaff? We've got to be getting close. I want a roof over my head tonight and a real bed to sleep in," mumbled the sandy haired man on point.

"Rough estimate? I'd say not more than three miles. If we keep up this pace, we'll be able to make it by sunset," replied the short Hispanic man behind him. He kept his voice low as his eyes searched the horizon.

"So stop complaining, Jack, and pick up the pace!" snapped a stout, redheaded woman in a hushed tone; though low, it carried to the man in front. "'Sides, I need to find me some new socks or I'm gonna have permanent blisters."

The lean, dark haired man who brought up the rear guard of the small group simply sighed and shook his head at the woman in front of him. His turned his head and went back to scanning the forest around them, glancing upward now and then. Shifting the straps of his military-grade backpack to ride on his shoulders a little better, he settled the heavy duty assault rifle into the crook of his arm.

"I wonder what we'll find when we get to this town, Carlos," the woman said. She gave a little grunt as she stumbled over an outcropping of rocks hidden under several years of accumulated pine needles.

"Same thing we always find," replied Carlos. "Rats, wild dogs, canned food that's starting to taste like wallpaper paste, bizarre refrigerator-science projects, and rusting junk in the street."

Jack snorted but said nothing else.

"What about people? Think anyone's still living there?" she asked.

"Doubt it," Jack answered this time, "Those that escaped the cullings most likely fled to Mexico or joined up with some small group in the wilderness somewhere, kinda like ours. No one lives in towns anymore. You should know that by now, Karla. With all the little towns we've gone through, never seeing another living soul, we got less chance than ever of finding anyone else. With every day that passes, that chance gets slimmer."

She frowned and was about to say something else when Rear Guard hissed, "Quiet!"

They pulled their guns off their shoulders, flicking the safeties off as their eyes darted from shadow to shadow, trying to find the source of Rear Guard's alarm.

Nothing moved in the early evening shadows except the breeze sighing through the boughs of the trees, making them sway gently back and forth.

Rear Guard strained to hear anything but the distant bird calls and the wind in the pines around them. His hackles were up, though, and he felt it now: something was out there watching them.

The group spread out as they tried to find what had alerted him. After several minutes had passed, Jack found a grouping of trees and scrub that provided a bit of cover.

"What did you see, Bill?" asked Jack of Rear Guard as the others joined him.

"Not sure. Thought I saw a shadow move in the trees then it was gone," replied Bill as he kept his back to the party, his eyes still scanning the area. "I get the feeling we aren't alone."

"You're not," responded a male voice from the other side of the trees where they had taken cover. The sound of a shot gun round being chambered made all four of them stiffen.

* * *

Just before supper, Mal checked off the last item of business on her current "needs attention" list. Gathering her things, she leaned backwards a little in her office chair to work out the tension between her shoulders then straightened. She sighed as she rubbed her sore eyes with a free hand; the file she'd been reading out of earlier was clutched in the other.

Mal rose and worked her way towards the hospital ambulance garage where she followed her ears to the soulful, sultry sounds of Billie Holiday.

She smiled as she thought of Thomas' love of music. It was one of the things that reminded him of better times. He'd found an old phonograph, and rigged it to be powered by a car battery. Everyone had their own private indulgence of days gone by; this was his.

The song came to an end with the flourish of trumpet and drum. The small burst of scratchy static sounded as the needle slid to the end of the record then stopped.

In the silence, Mal could hear the clatter of tools on his portable workbench inside of one of their transport vehicles. "Thomas?" she called out to him as she drew near the panel truck.

The panel truck shifted as the small, stout German man came to the door, looking at her with startling gray eyes. "Ya?"

"I was told you know about…" – Mal looked down at the file in her hands – "…hydro-turbine power generators." She glanced back up at him to gauge his reaction.

He rubbed at his blonde beard, showing more gray now than when she'd first met him, "Ya. I know ov dem," he said in the heavy German accent that had not left him in three years.

"Good, then maybe you can look at this and tell me more about what's in this file," she said as she handed it to him. Grabbing the handle outside of the truck, she hauled herself up into the back as Thomas moved aside to let her into the portable workshop.

Opening the file and going to the battery powered lamp on his workbench, he reached over and replaced the needle at the beginning of the record, starting the music up again. The low mournful sound of a trumpet began the first song. Flipping through the pages one at a time, he stroked his short beard now and then in thought.

Mal waited, finding a place to sit on a small stool, knowing by now not to touch anything for fear of getting her hand slapped. She found her foot tapping in time with the music.

Finally he looked up at her and nodded, "Dis looks promising, Mal, but only if dey completed da verk before da attack. From da dates on dese permits, dey should have been up and fully functional by den. Da only vay you'll know is if you send someone up to look around." His eyes sparkled in the minimal light from the lamp on his workbench. "Can I go?"

She frowned at him but if anyone would be able to give an accurate assessment of the state of things at this power station, it was Thomas. "All right, but it'll be a few days before I'm ready to send anyone out that way yet. If these are working and the town they supply has plenty of space up there for us, we might have just found a more permanent living situation. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up yet, so keep this quiet. Winter's coming soon and we have a lot of work to do in the next few months before we can even consider another den move in the spring."

Thomas, silent, only smiled, but his gray eyes glowed with excitement.

Mal got up off the stool and pointed to the file. "Keep that to look over some more and let me know who you recommend to go with you. I'll let you know when I've got a team put together to head that way."

She climbed out of the panel truck then turned back to say, "Supper's almost ready. Might want to close down for the night."

Leaving, she realized she didn't want to put too much of her own fragile hope into this upcoming scouting mission. She'd been let down before. Part of her prayed that this might be the first step to finding the perfect place she'd been looking for...something more permanent.

As she left the garage, the hauntingly lonely sound of a long-gone voice followed her. _"Sad am I," _Billie Holiday sang,_ "Glad am I, For today I'm dreaming of yesterday."_

* * *

Carlos paced back and forth in what was once an operating room. "I can't believe you let them take our packs!" He turned in his circuit and glared at Bill.

"What would you have me do, Carlos? Shoot them for being cautious?" he asked.

"How many people did you count?" asked Jack from where he sat on the edge of a second bed, his feet swinging a little with nervous energy.

"Before I was blindfolded? Six," offered Karla. "And what was with those cloaks they were all wearing?"

"I counted eight. Two were up on the roof of the hotel. Wouldn't know they were there unless you knew what to look for," replied Bill. "As for the cloaks, I don't know what that was all about but it wouldn't hurt to ask the next time we get a chance to talk to someone."

"Yeah, that's _if_ we get to talk to anyone. For all we know, we're someone's prisoners now. Boy won't we look stupid if we are, having gone along so quietly," Carlos said sarcastically, running a hand through his short-cropped black hair. With a sigh he flopped down into what had most likely been a waiting room chair and looked around their new quarters.

A battery operated Coleman lantern sat on a table in the middle of the room, giving off enough light to see by. Four chairs were set around the table. The room had been emptied of its surgical equipment, and four hospital beds wheeled in.

Karla walked over to one of two doors into the room and looked into the scrub room for the second time. "At least they have running water and flushable toilets. Haven't seen those in three years," she said with a grin. "And a shower. Doubt the water's gonna be warm but it's still a shower."

Bill smirked at that, thinking how she'd gone from stressed to overjoyed at the sight of a flushing toilet in the span of ten seconds. He watched Karla as she moved over to one of the two empty beds and belly-flopped onto it.

Jack looked over at Carlos. "Listen, whatever's going on here, I got the sense they've got their shit together. I don't think they'll off us unless we give them a good reason to."

"I couldn't have said it better myself," came a female voice from the doorway to the scrub room.

Bill's head jerked up, his body tensing as he slid off the bed in a fluid movement. "Who are you?" he demanded brusquely.

The woman raised an eyebrow at his tone, then stepped into the room, carrying a tray that held four steaming bowls of something that smelled delicious, a pitcher of liquid, and four glasses stacked next to it.

Carlos, Jack, and Karla joined Bill, keeping a safe distance between them and their visitor.

The woman moved over to the table and sat the tray down. Her pale blue eyes assessed each one in turn before she spoke. "Name's Mal. I run the show around here," she said with a slight shrug of the shoulders. "I bring you offerings of spam and bean soup, instant lemonade and your gear, minus your weapons, I'm sorry to say."

Behind her, two men came in carrying their packs, one in each hand. The packs were deposited just inside the doorway before one of the men left the way he'd come, while a Native American-looking man went through the second set of doors that led to the hallway to retrieve two chairs, bringing them into the room and setting them apart from the others. When he was done, he sat down and fastened his dark eyes upon them.

Bill knew that look. He was here to watch Mal's back.

"Sorry for the cool welcome but we don't get strays much anymore. We take precautions to scan for 'con tech and to make sure nothing endangers my people." The woman stepped away from the table and smiled a little.

Nodding to the other man, Bill shifted slightly. "Who's he?"

Mal looked over her shoulder slightly. "That's Frank. Technically, you've already met since he's the one who found you. We wanted to ask you a few questions, let you know about our rules, give you a few options and let you have the rest of the evening to decide where you want to go from here."

Three of the four met that statement with uneasy silence as they glanced nervously at each other, the food, and their two new companions. Bill shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, prepared to protect the others if need be.

"So, now that you know who we are, who are you?" She looked the four of them over, obviously waiting for an answer.

* * *

"What do you think, Bill?" asked Carlos.

Putting a finger to his lips, he moved towards the operating room doors that lead out to the hallway. When Mal and Frank left, the doors hadn't shut properly and a thin line of light could be seen coming through the bottom half.

Kneeling by the base of the door, he put his ear to the opening to see if he could hear anything from outside.

"Well?" he heard Frank say.

"That's a very deep subject," Mal responded.

"Mal," Frank sighed with exasperation, "you know what I mean. Do you think they can be trusted?"

"I really don't want to discuss it, not right here and not right now. We'll talk about it in the morning, Frank." That seemed to be her final word on the subject as the sound of shifting fabric filtered through the gap. "Stay at your posts until second watch relieves you. No one in or out, period." Several voices murmured an affirmative, and the sound of retreating footsteps on tiled floors signaled the end of the discussion.

Carefully moving away from the door, Bill stood and turned, only to find himself looking back at three expectant faces, showing varied degrees of worry and curiosity.

He walked over to where Carlos sat, allowing him to be able to speak quietly with Jack and Karla who were nearby – without the possibility of being overheard by the guards.

"Well? What did you hear?" Carlos asked, very quietly.

"Not much. Frank asked her if she thought we could be trusted and she told him she wouldn't discuss it until tomorrow morning. Guards are posted; she told 'em no one in or out." He shrugged.

Rubbing his stubble covered chin, Bill walked back over to his bed and sat down before looking at the others. "Opinions?"

There was silence for a few moments before Jack spoke up. "Yeah. Her cooking is a hell of a lot better than yours."

The sound of a hand slapping cloth could be heard. "Ow! What was that for?"

"That's not what he meant," Karla said. She moved away from Jack's bed and leaned against the wall. Bill watched as she crossed her arms as if to hug herself, one hand going to her mouth as she bit at the nail on her thumb, a sign he had come to associate with nerves on her part.

"All my instincts tell me to trust them but everything seems too good to be true. I mean, she was very vague about everything. Why? Like, what's it going to hurt to just answer our questions?" she mumbled around her nail biting.

"Because," responded Carlos from where he still sat in his chair, "she's protecting others. She doesn't know us from Adam and we could be spies for another group wanting to take their supplies. We could even be spies for the 'cons for all she knows. The less we know, the safer her people will be until we commit."

Bill saw Carlos' eyes travel to where he stood, looking for confirmation that he was correct. With a nod, he agreed.

Carlos was thoughtful for a moment, then continued. "Unfortunately, it makes it hard to decide without having all the facts. For all we know, they could be a bizarre cult looking for sacrifices or something."

Karla looked suddenly pale and she stiffened, her hand dropping away from her mouth as her teeth clenched together.

"Relax," Bill said as he tried to calm her fears. "He's just giving a 'what if.' But he's right. I don't think we can make an informed decision for ourselves or the others until we know more about what's going on here." He stifled a yawn. "No sense trying to figure any more of this out tonight. Might as well get some sleep and see what happens tomorrow. The best thing we can do is go with what our gut tells us."

As each of them settled in for the night, becoming lost in their thoughts, Bill realized it was the first time he'd been surrounded by absolute silence in years. With several walls between their room and the outside, the normal sounds of nature could no longer be heard.

He shifted, feeling a little uncomfortable at the trapped sensation that settled in the pit of his stomach. Shoving that away, and wondered if he would make the right decision tomorrow.

* * *

Mal awoke from a dream as her internal alarm told her it was time to start the day. The dream had been somehow different from the others she had since the Day It All Changed.

As the last remnants of sleep faded she tried to grasp the dissipating strands of it in an effort to remember what made it different. She hadn't felt afraid in this one, only frustrated and defeated, somehow. But in the darkness of her private quarters, the fading images slipped away.

With a sigh, she threw off the covers and stood, taking the ten steps to the small table where a solar powered lamp sat. She fumbled with the switch on the lamp, and after a moment the LED came to life, bathing the room in an eerie blue-white light.

Pouring water from the pitcher sitting in the basin on a night stand, Mal leaned over and splashed the cool water onto her face. That made her forget about the dream, and jumpstarted her into going over details of her meeting with their "guests."

Finishing the quick wash-up, she pulled on a clean pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. After running a brush through her hair and re-braiding it, she looked in the mirror to confirm that she was presentable. She winced at her reflection, wondering when the sassy young waitress she used to see had been replaced by someone who reminded her of her mother.

Turning away, she knew Frank would be at her door any time now to discuss their course of action and he would, most likely, have Chris with him.

As she worked to put her quarters into order for the day, a knock sounded on her door and she called out, "Come in."

The door opened and Frank, trailed by Chris, stepped out of the darkened hallway, the light of the lamp giving their features that sunken, haunted look. As always, Chris thought ahead and had brought a breakfast tray with enough for the three of them to share. They could have eaten with the early crew, but it was easier to sit in her room and discuss things in private

Frank stood next to one of the empty chairs and waited for Chris and Mal to join him. Once Mal waved him into it, he helped Chris set things out for breakfast on the small table Mal kept in her room, which did duty both for her own projects, and meetings like this one. "You ready to talk about our guests now that it's morning?"

She shrugged in a non-committal way as she sat, and watched while Chris dished food into three bowls, while Frank poured dark steaming liquid into three cups. Not bothering to beat around the bush, Mal said flatly, "The one they call Bill, their leader of sorts, seems vaguely familiar somehow but I don't know why. The way he danced around our questions, he's obviously had lots of practice playing politics. He's military, I'd say. You got any opinions otherwise?"

They shook their heads. Frank took what Chris offered, setting it aside for the time being as he brought his cup to his lips to take a sip. He knew better than to interrupt Mal when she was thinking out loud.

She took the bowl Chris held out to her and after several bites, looked up at Frank. "I'll take them breakfast and see if they've decided anything. If they are half as smart as I think they are, they'll be waiting to see what other cards we show them before deciding whether to play with us." She reached out and picked up her cup and took a sip. "If it looks like they might be leaning towards staying, I'll decide whether I feel comfortable exposing them to our people."

"What if they meet our people and decide not to join?" asked Chris, finally speaking up. He sat down and began to eat his own breakfast.

She paused as she worked to put her thoughts into words. "If they don't want to join us and play by our rules, we have several options. One of which is restocking their supplies, showing them the door and letting them go on their way."

Frank shook his head. "I don't like it. Anyone we run across now has had three years to plan, scheme and become just as paranoid as the next hunted human out there. If they decide not to stay with us, how do we know we can trust them?"

"We don't. And that leads us to our second option. I'll have to make a choice at the time we let them go as to whether we kill them or not. They know we're here in Flagstaff. It won't be hard for them to come back here with reinforcements or tell others about us. Personally, I don't like the idea of having to kill another human, but if it means protecting the lives of those here, then I'll gladly order it done or do it myself, if I have to." Mal averted her eyes from the others as she scraped the remainder of the food out of the bottom of her bowl.

Her words seemed to have relaxed Frank, though Chris looked at her with quiet concern over the rim of his bowl.

Frank took a sip from his cup. He nodded finally, "All right. We'll do this your way and see how it plays out."

Mal nodded and picked up her cup to drain it as she thought over the choices she'd have to make. The decision sat like a lead weight in the pit of her stomach, much like her breakfast.

* * *

Mal asked one of the guards to knock on their guests' door before opening it for her. She carried a tray laden with their breakfast and a pot of steaming liquid.

She had delayed coming here in hopes that the four would have had time to get up and dressed before she barged in on them.

She found the four of them in various states of dress and packing, and they all looked up at her as she entered. "Good morning. Thought I'd bring you breakfast."

"Is that…coffee?" asked Carlos, awe evident in his voice.

"Why, yes it is. Hope you don't mind. Breakfast is oatmeal, brown sugar, raisins and rehydrated powdered milk," Mal offered as she set the tray down.

They didn't move as they stared at her.

"What? Did you think we were going to starve you into submission? This is exactly what we all ate for breakfast. Granted, the longer we stay in one location, the more breakfast begins to look like supper but hey, we enjoy it while we can," Mal said, a smirk on her lips.

Bill moved over to the coffee pot and poured a cup before holding it under his nose. "It's been almost a year since I last had coffee."

Karla pulled on a sweater and moved to the table, uncovering the large bowl of oatmeal and moaned, "Oh man. That smells so good!" She said nothing else as she began to dish out the meal, while Carlos poured coffee for the other three.

As the four began to eat, Mal sat in one of the chairs she and Frank had used the night before. "So have you come to a decision?"

Bill looked at her and shook his head. "We talked it over and we haven't decided yet. We just don't feel comfortable making a decision with the small amount of information you've given us. No offense but you could be some freakish cult, or be under the control of some sadistic ruler, and we wouldn't know until it was too late."

Mal was quiet for a few moments as she let them eat. "I know I was vague and I'm sorry but I can't take chances with the lives of my people."

"Exactly how many people are you talking about?" asked Jack around a mouthful of food.

She tilted her head as she studied him, "Well, I'm going to take a leap of faith here. If you'll agree to blindfolds and being led around by the hand, I'll take you to meet some of them: they're still having breakfast. Maybe if you had a chance to talk with them yourselves, you could make a more informed decision. They'll tell you how we live, what we do to survive. You'll see the general state of things."

She watched as they looked at each other as if silently trying to communicate with one another. Bill finally nodded, "All right. What other choice do we have?"

"You have two other choices. You can leave here right now with provisions without seeing anything else and continue on your way. No fuss, no muss. If you choose that path, and you come back, you will be shot on sight, no questions asked." Mal put a bit of an edge to her voice. "As I've said before, I have people to protect. I won't take unnecessary chances."

She saw Karla swallow nervously and knew she'd made her point.

"Fair enough. And if we meet these people and still decide we don't want to join up?" Bill asked, and Mal felt her stomach clench.

"It depends entirely on you. You walk out of here with full provisions and the knowledge of what you've seen today with the understanding you're not to speak about it to anyone, or you won't walk out of here at all." She stated the facts simply. She would be honest with these people, especially with Bill. She understood on a deep level that he would sense a falsehood.

"_What_? You mean you'd kill us? Just like _th__at_? Because of what we've seen?" shouted Karla as she tried to leap to her feet, her pupils dilated in fear.

Mal watched as Carlos and Jack both grabbed her arms and forced her to sit back down in her chair. "Relax, Karla. You aren't helping matters. She's obviously got more here to protect than just a few people or she wouldn't be considering such extreme measures. Any of us would do the same if we were in her shoes," Jack said quietly to her.

As Mal watched, trying to keep her face passive, Bill swirled the coffee in the bottom of his cup and poured some more from the pot. He took another sip and savored it. "I won't speak for the others but I'll take that chance. I want to see what you're willing to kill to protect."

One by one, finally ending with Karla who could only give a curt little nod, each agreed with Bill's statement.

"All right," Mal said, slapping her hands to her thighs before standing up, "let's get you ready to meet some of the others. They don't know you're coming. Ask them anything you want. Some may be cautious, some won't answer, but I'm sure you'll be able to find the few chatterboxes we have around here." She smirked as she thought about the individuals who could never seem to keep their mouths shut, even when ordered to.

For some reason, she saw that this last statement made Bill relax just a little. She wondered if the idea of being allowed access to those that couldn't keep a secret to save their lives gave him a bit more firm ground to stand on.

* * *

Mal summoned a sandy haired man with several ragged scars along the left side of his face named Chris to blindfold them. As Bill watched his teammates being blindfolded, he saw the care Chris put into making sure they were secure but not uncomfortable.

They were led through multiple halls, up and down several flights of stairs, and turned around many times. To Bill, it felt like they had walked back to the border of Utah by the time the low hum of voices caught his attention.

He could sense the change in air temperature when they entered a bigger room, and the scent of fresh coffee, oatmeal, and sugar in the air told him they had come to the place where breakfast was being served. Slowly, the soft chatter of voices began to die away, and he wondered how many people it took to create that much noise.

He felt fingers at the back of his head as the blindfold was pulled away. His vision was filled with row upon row of tables, bench seating mixed with chairs. People of every height, race, and age sat as a group, sharing their morning meal.

Bill could only stare at the sight of that many pairs of eyes turned to look at them. He found his mouth slipping open a little in surprise.

Of all the things that he might notice, the thing that first got his attention was that everyone seemed to be fairly well fed, though no one could eat in excess any more. But nobody here was skin and bones either.

The other thing that hit him was that with this many people in a confined space, he would have expected the smell of unwashed clothes and bodies. There wasn't one. Everyone seemed clean and fairly well groomed; they wore clean clothes, and only the children seemed to be wearing anything patched.

He heard Karla gasp behind him as she caught her first look at the mass of people as her blindfold was taken off. "There's…so many of you!" exclaimed Karla.

A sound of soft laughter rolled through the group sitting at the tables. Chris smiled at her from where he stood near the door. "It's all her fault," he said, pointing toward Mal, and that elicited another round of chuckles.

Vaguely Bill heard Mal speak up as his mind was otherwise occupied. "I would like all of you to welcome our guests. They are trying to decide if they should join our group or not." She proceeded to introduce them by the names they had given the night before, pointing to each person as she did. "Please make them feel welcome, and answer their questions if you feel comfortable doing so."

Bill nodded to those assembled and saw Mal turn towards them, opening her mouth to say something when a voice from across the room asked, "Where did you come from?"

"We're from up in Utah. We've been scouting for signs of the Decepticons to see how far spread the devastation is," replied Jack.

With that, there was a growing buzz of conversation. Questions were called out to the four travelers.

"How bad is it up in Utah?"

"Did they bomb Salt Lake City too?"

"What about other towns and outlying areas in the Rockies?"

Mal held up her hand, "People! Please! We have plenty of time to share information and ask questions as well as answer theirs, but remember your manners."

There was a soft murmur as people began to talk amongst themselves again.

A young man stood up towards the back of the room. "You're _him_! I know who you are!" he snarled, pointing at Bill.

Before his tablemates could react, the young man came storming around the tables and headed right for him, face set in a furious glare. "It's your fault!" he shouted. "It's your fault this all happened!" The young man's arms spread wide as if to indicate everything around him. "You and those damned Autobots! You let them stay here and it brought those stupid Decepticons and their war! Now look at us!"

Mal interposed herself between him and the young man. "Kurt! Don't do this. You know better. If you have a grievance against this man, you take it up with me, _privately_." Several others, including Frank, moved up behind Kurt, moving around the young man until they were able to close the circle and bodily block him from going after Bill.

"It's all your fault!" shouted Kurt. "It's your fault my family's dead!" He continued as Chris and Frank took hold of his arms and walked him out of the room. "Where are they now? Huh? Where are your Autobot buddies? Gone! They left us to rot and your stupid government goons did nothing to stop them from leaving, _did_ they!"

The other men managed to get Kurt out of the cafeteria. His shouted questions, unanswered, dwindled as they hustled him off, down the hall.

By now half of the people in the room were standing, gawking in the direction Kurt had been taken. The looks of shock on their faces gave Bill the impression they'd never seen that young man so aggravated before. Embarrassment and shame were on a number of their faces as they glanced back towards Bill, but a few seemed to hold suspicion and a touch of uncertainty.

Mal clenched her jaw for a moment before looking around the room. She said quietly, voice pitched to carry, "It's no one's fault, what happened. The Decepticons are to blame and no one else." Her eyes came back to look at Bill for a moment before continuing around the room. "If I hear of anyone making trouble for our guests, I will be having a discussion with them myself, privately. If you have a problem or concerns with them being here, take it up with me, not them. Make them feel welcome as you would anyone else."

Bill saw people nod and slowly go back to their forgotten breakfasts as if nothing had happened, though the conversations seemed a bit more subdued.

Mal turned and gave him a speculative glance but she said nothing else, nor did she question him about Kurt's accusations. "Well people, if you still feel up to mingling, please feel free. When you feel you've had enough, have Frank and Chris take you back to your room. I'll meet up with you there this evening and you can tell me what you've decided." She looked over her shoulder in the direction that Kurt went. "I believe I need to go have a discussion with that young man about his manners before I take care of my own duties for the day."

She nodded to them before turning and leaving the room.

Bill watched her go and raised an eyebrow as he looked at his three other teammates. He could see they were chomping at the bit to go ask questions and with a silent nod, he gave his assent. His gut, however, told him that this would not be the last he heard of Kurt's accusations.

* * *

It had been a long morning for everyone concerned. When Mal stopped back by the cafeteria to grab a bite of lunch, their four guests were still asking questions and talking to those that had come off watch shifts, and those whose jobs were done for the time being – until they took up another shift in a few hours; doubtless their visitors would have found by now that most people worked two shifts.

_Except for me_, Mal thought. _I get three every day, except the night after moving_.

She nodded to her people and her visitors as she passed through and headed back to her own work. Her talk with Kurt that morning had been very "enlightening," to say the least, but she wouldn't have confirmation of any of the things Kurt had said, raved, or shouted at her until she had a chance to talk to Bill later that evening.

Mal took her homemade tortilla, wrapped around the thickened remains of spam-and-bean soup, and went on her rounds to check to make sure tasks were still on schedule. She sighed for what seemed like the twentieth time that day. She felt bad about her decision to send Kurt out on scavenger duty, one of his least favorite jobs, but she needed to keep him out of the way until she had time to talk to everyone at supper about their feelings in regard to the guests.

The day went by swiftly since she decided to go down to the fallout shelter, turned temporary storage hold, and help unpack the boxes of canned goods that had been brought in from the surrounding residential neighborhood. It was mainly busy work but it kept her mind off of what might be coming down the line.

When supper time came, she made her way to the main level and washed up before taking her customary seat at the end of the table, where she would always be the last served. She smirked when she thought about how Chris scolded her for it, saying she worked harder than most so she should get served first.

"It helps with moral, Chris. Seriously! If I am the last one to the new den, the last one to sleep, the last one to eat, it shows others that I put their health and safety before my own. They can never accuse me of only looking out for myself."

He'd growled at her, and ended up leaving her little treats now and then, like the flask of booze that first night here. Sometimes it was a stale chocolate bar, sometimes dried fruit. She shook her head a little to clear her thoughts and turned her mind back to the upcoming discussion.

Half way through the meal of venison stew, compliments of Frank's hunting prowess, she stood up and raised her hands. "Everyone," she said and waited for the noise to die down. "For those of you that had a chance to meet and talk with our four guests, I would ask at this time that if you have an opinion about them, and how well they might fit into this group if they decide to stay, please speak your piece." She sat back down, and waited to hear what the others had to say.

There was a quiet moment before Mark, who was usually the shyest of all of them, stood up and spoke. "I think they should be allowed to stay. Actually I think they should be encouraged to stay." With this, he sat down rather abruptly.

Mal raised an eyebrow at this. Getting an opinion from Mark, much less one so vocal, must mean they had impressed him greatly.

Vanessa, Kitty and Henry's mother, stood up. "I agree. You do know there are more of them, right? They have a small encampment in Utah. I don't think Karla meant to let that slip but I got the sense it wasn't very big. They all seemed like good people. Very competent."

There was a murmur of agreement as Vanessa sat down. Several others stood up and spoke their minds, including Thomas. "Several ov dem have good military training. Dey could use dere expertise to bolshter da few here who do."

Finally after everyone had said what they thought was important, Mal nodded and stood again, looking at everyone in turn to give them the sense that their opinion had been heard. "I'll be discussing things with them this evening. If they wish to stay on, I will extend an offer for them to bring the rest of their group down here if everyone is in agreement."

She asked for a show of hands for and against. Though she held her breath through the nays, she needn't have bothered. There were none.

But then, Kurt and his team weren't back yet.

* * *

Bill looked at his teammates as they sat around, mulling over the conversations from earlier in the day. He left them to the task since he had much to think about himself. To say he was shocked by what he had learned, layered with pleasantly surprised, would have been an understatement. These people had figured out how to survive, and not only to survive, but to thrive, all the while going unnoticed by the Decepticons.

That, all by itself, took a feat worthy of any military general. He'd asked plenty of questions about their leader, Mal. The only complaints he heard were, "She doesn't eat enough" and "She pushes herself too hard." There had been a few things said about her mistakes when they had first started out as a group, but those individuals had been quick to point out that she had learned from them and was always good about listening to others for suggestions and ideas. If those were the only complaints that they could come up with after almost three years of her leadership, then maybe she had the guts to take on all of them, not just four more.

He thought about his daughter, still in Utah with the rest of their group. He missed her terribly and his fingers automatically reached in and pulled out the picture inside the breast pocket of his jacket, the last one taken before the attack. She'd grown into a beautiful young woman who had her mother's face and his eyes.

He smiled as he touched the picture and slipped it back in. He'd see her soon, one way or another. Maybe if he brought her here, there would be more opportunity for her to learn things, to find others her age, to live a better life than he could give her in the forest in no-man's land.

The sound of someone knocking on the door startled him out of his thoughts and a moment later, the doors were pushed open to reveal Mal, carrying another food tray. She was alone this time and there was no mistaking the smell of venison stew coming from the covered bowl in the center of the tray. His stomach growled and he flushed a little. He'd had three good meals in the last day and a half, better than he'd had in months, and his stomach had decided it liked this change.

"Sorry I'm a bit late," Mal said, a smirk hinting at the corner of her lips as Bill's stomach growled. "Duty called and I had to take care of some things before I could get away." She set the tray down and backed away from it so the other three, who had slid down off their beds, could begin to serve up the meal.

"I understand. Trying to keep up with seventy-three people must be like herding chickens most of the time," offered Bill as he went over to collect his own bowl of stew from Karla.

There was a burst of good-natured laughter from Mal that surprised him, "You have no idea. I've called this place a dog and pony show at times, when in reality it's more like a 'small, annoying, yappy-type dog and stubborn mule show.'" She smiled easily and sat down in one of the chairs.

Jack nearly choked on his spoonful of stew when she said that and Karla seemed to take a bit of extra glee in pounding him hard upon the back to help him out.

"So I guess this is where you ask us, again, if we've made a decision," said Bill as he smirked at the dark look Jack shot Karla.

Mal nodded but said nothing else. She relaxed back in the chair and waited, folding her hands across her stomach.

Since they had discussed many things after returning except that one thing, he knew he couldn't answer for the others. He felt this time it was everyone for themselves. If they didn't want to join, they would be free to go their own way. If they wanted to stay, it had to be their choice.

"I would like to stay," said Carlos, who had been the quietest after coming back from the cafeteria.

"Me too," replied Karla.

Jack seemed intent on finding the bottom of his bowl before answering. "I'm in."

Bill felt all eyes turn to him as he sipped on the glass of Kool-aid that had been brought with the meal and his mind froze for a moment, thinking about the references to the drink he was holding. With a smirk at his own morbid thoughts he nodded, "I too, would like to stay, but…" he paused, not sure how to phrase the next part.

"But you have others in Utah that belong to your group and you want to know if we'll accept them too," replied Mal, with a raised eyebrow.

Bill blinked at her, feeling a little stunned. Jack and Carlos both looked as though they'd been smacked in the back of the head with 2x4's. "How did," he tried to stammer out.

Mal chuckled softly, "While you were interrogating my people, they were interrogating you right back. Karla let it slip somehow that there were others up in Utah."

The three men looked at Karla who shrank back a little, mumbling an apology.

"Don't be too hard on her. Some of my people should have worked for Homeland Security. They are really good at getting things out of people without letting their target realize what they just spilled," Mal said with a slight chuckle. "Be warned. There are no secrets around here unless you keep them to yourself."

Bill relaxed a little. "Well, since that was what I was going to talk to you about, yeah. We have sixteen others, to be exact, in Utah. Do you have room for them?"

Mal made a slight noise that sounded like she was contemplating something. "I think we can handle it. When this group first got going, we had almost a hundred. We came under attack by a stray Decepticon during a den move about two years back and lost one of our convoy transports, including the twenty-two aboard. That's one of the reasons we do den moves in stages, so if we're discovered we risk only a small number of people, or a small amount of supplies. Sounds harsh but it's better to lose a little than to lose it all."

Sadness sat on her face, and Bill could sympathize. They'd lost several people through the years too.

Mal seemed to make an effort to shake herself free from that line of thought. She shifted her gaze about the group, catching the haunted looks her words had invoked. Deciding to lighten the mood, she continued. "So, I'm glad you all decided to stay, otherwise you'd have a fight on your hands. Seems my people are quite taken with you." She smiled warmly at the looks of surprise on several faces.

Bill smiled at her. "Well, I guess that settles it, then?"

"Actually, not quite," Mal said, holding up a hand to forestall them getting up. "I've got two things to discuss with you yet. One involves all of you, and the other, you personally, Bill."

The others grew tense and Bill could see the "fight or flight" mode starting to kick in. "All right, what's the one that involves all of us?" he asked.

"Since you have a group that you need to bring down from Utah and winter is coming, I have a proposition for you. A small team of my people are going to be headed north towards the Utah and New Mexico borders to look at a possible site for our next den move sometime down the road. We always try to find an alternative site as soon as possible after settling in case we're attacked. That way we have another place to escape to. That being said, do two of your group want to travel most of the way to the Utah border with them and provide a partial military escort?"

Bill blinked at that. It wasn't at all what he'd been expecting. "I don't see why not so long as it doesn't take us too far out of our way. We'd have to look on the map to see how far we're going to have to backtrack so we know when to break off from your group to go get ours."

She nodded, "Good. We'll make sure you're fully provisioned before you break from our group to make the quickest time back. We know that the snows can be unpredictable and we'd want to make sure your people are down here safely before they, and we, are snowed in for the winter. Worst case, we can at least get two of you back up there and if the weather does turn bad, you know where we're at and can make it to us in the spring. I'm sure we all know the rules about travel when snow's on the ground?"

They all nodded: no travel in the snow for fear of leaving tracks that could be followed by the Decepticons. Fall was stock-up time: gather and hunt like crazy before the first snowfall, because there would be no further chance to get anything else laid in until the last of the stuff melted.

"Now, the second thing," she said as she turned towards Bill. "I talked to Kurt today after his little blowup and he had quite a tale to tell about one Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox of NEST."

The other three glanced at one another uneasily.

Former Lieutenant Colonel William Lennox, once of NEST, winced inwardly but kept an impassive face. "Retired," Bill said tersely.

-TBC-


	3. Chapter 3

**(Finally! I've managed to struggle over my writers block and dig myself out from under the slump I've been hiding under. Things are slowing down at work to give me more time to write (hope I don't jinx myself). **

**I call this my 'transition' chapter, getting the characters from point A to point B. I'm not the type of writer who goes: **

**Step 1) Steal underwear. Step 2) A miracle happens. Step 3) World domination. **

**Some of the things that happen in this chapter are important later on. I can promise you though - after this chapter, things will start to take off for the team. Mysteries, questions and surprises, oh my!**

**Thanks for your patience and to my Beta for keeping me going. ****So enjoy! Please feel free to review. Reviews feed the muse.)**

* * *

**Chapter 3**

" Slow down, Zeus. What's the rush?" complained Petty Officer Second Class Farwell.

"Rush? I'm not rushing. You're just too damned slow. Now get your gear and meet me on deck in five. As soon as we drop anchor we're off this tub, heading north," replied a man with a heavy duty, camo painted case strapped to his back.

"Do you have to take that 'thing' with you? It's just gonna slow us down," complained Farwell, staring at the case.

"I'm not leaving her behind. Besides, you're not the one carrying her or the ammo. I am. So shut up and get your ass in gear, or we're leaving without you." With that, Chief Petty Officer Richards, nicknamed Zeus, climbed the stairs yelling, "Make a hole!"

On deck, he found two men waiting for him near one of the life rafts that had been readied, packs at their feet.

"You two ready?" asked Zeus. Before either could answer, the loud sound of the anchor chain rattled through its moorings as it was released. The sound vibrated through the deck and when the chain reached its end, it slammed taught with the sound of finality.

The black skinned man with a shaved head looked towards the stern then nodded. He sported pink skin down the left side of his face where he was still healing from burns he'd suffered six months back. The second man, a short, stocky fellow who was a Marine by training rather than Navy, grunted.

"Been ready for five minutes. What's taking Farwell?" asked the black man.

"Same thing that always takes Farwell, Chief," said Zeus. "He has to question everything."

The stocky man grunted, "He ain't here in two minutes, I'm climbing into that boat and leavin' his sorry arse behind. I see land and we gotta git before anyone on shore decides ta take it in der heads we need ta be boarded." His eyes looked around the deck of the ship, watching the other crew members moving about in preparation to abandon ship.

"I'm here, so shut your trap, you hide-bound Jarhead." Farwell surfaced from the stairwell with his bulging pack slung over his shoulders.

Zeus saw the man they called Stony, clench his jaw and flex his knuckles. This didn't bode well for the beginning of their trip. "Stow it, you two. Everyone checked their firearms, counted your rounds left and packed every ounce of food you can get your hands on?" When he got nods from the other three, he sighed. "All right, let's move."

Heading to the life raft, the others picked up their packs. With a last look behind them, they each silently bid their home for the past three years a silent farewell before stepping into their new ride.

Not one of them was sorry to go.

Within moments, water lapped at the sides of the inflatable life raft as Chief fired the outboard motor and they sped away from the side of the Cyclone Class patrol boat, USS Whirlwind. Angling a course away from the inlet within the Gulf of California, they headed farther up the shoreline, hoping to go as far as the gas in the engine would take them, away from any populated areas.

As the deeper shades of dusk began to cover the waters, the motor began to sputter. "That's it guys," called Chief as he steered the life raft towards the shore. The engine cut out within twenty feet of land and they coasted in the rest of the way.

Zeus was the first out, his feet landing in the water of the inlet they'd put into. Grabbing the tow rope, he helped to pull the boat in the rest of the way to shore.

Within moments, they had the motor disconnected from the life raft. Everything was drug up into the trees and the life raft was deflated before being draped over several low hanging branches.

It would dry that way, but they didn't care about that. It would also block anyone on the water from seeing the light of the small campfire they started to heat up their meal.

"So how many miles do you think we'll need to walk?" asked Farwell as they sat around the fire once supper was started.

"Does it matter?" grumbled Stony.

"Well," said Farwell, pausing, "yeah, I think it does. I mean, I wanna know." The whining quality to his voice set Zeus' nerves on edge.

Zeus looked at Chief who was barely visible in the dark, then looked at Farwell. "Maybe two hundred and fifty miles to the border of Mexico, give or take due to the number of side treks we have to take to avoid heavily populated areas. From there, it just depends on how far we intend to go up into the US."

For once, Farwell was left speechless, his mouth agape.

"What do you think we'll find once we get there?" asked Chief as he stirred their meal.

Stony frowned, his face looking almost demonic in the firelight. "I don't want to think about it. I just want to find out if there's anything left."

Zeus nodded, "As we get closer to the border, we'll see if we can't get some intel on what to expect. Someone has to know something about what happened. Someone has to know more than those sketchy reports we've managed to piece together over the last three years."

The conversation ceased when the scream of a wildcat echoed through the trees surrounding their small encampment. Farwell quickly got up and sat closer to the fire, his eyes frantically darting left and right. Zeus knew he would be absolutely useless on watch duty but they needed him for another reason.

"Let's eat," said Chief, breaking into the silence that had settled over them. "I'll take first watch. We need to get an early start tomorrow."

Stony only grunted and Zeus prayed for patience as he was handed his portion of the meal in a cup.

* * *

"Wake up, Jelly Bean. Need you to help Grandma out today," came the quiet voice of her grandpa as a weight settled on her bed and a warm hand shook her shoulder gently.

Yawning, Mal woke out of the drowse she'd been in. "But I hav'ta go to school," she answered in a half whine, which got swallowed by another yawn.

"Not today. We're got a snow storm a-comin' and I want you here with us when it hits. You're grandma will call school and tell 'em you're not coming in." She felt the bed shift as her grandpa got up and the sound of footsteps moved toward her door.

She sat up, blinking eyes that still felt gritty, trying to watch his shadow depart down the hallway. They were going to have a snowstorm? The weather man hadn't said anything about snow the night before on the radio. Something must have changed overnight. Tossing the covers back, eager to see if there was snow already falling, her small feet landed on the braided rug as she made her way to her window and pulled up the shade.

Dawn was just starting to color the horizon and from what little she could see, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, nor was there a flake of snow on the ground. Had her grandpa lost his mind? Getting dressed in the typical fashion of every seven year old, random clothing thrown on and pulled more-or-less into place, she hurried downstairs to the kitchen to find her grandma fixing eggs and bacon on the stove.

"Morning, Jelly Bean!" called her grandma.

"Grandpa said we were going to get snow but the weatherman said last night today was supposed to be nice," she said quickly without taking a breath. She had her test today in spelling and she'd been practicing all week to get her words right. She didn't want to miss it if she didn't have to.

"Do I have to miss school?" she asked, trying not to sound like she was whining. Most kids would be all too happy to miss out on a day of lessons but she'd been hoping to talk her grandma into taking her to the movies after school if she passed her test.

Her grandmother looked up, a strand of gray hair falling out of the bun on top of her head. "You need to go talk to your grandpa about that. If he says he wants you to miss school, then I'd listen to him. He tends to know what he's talking about, sweetie."

That seemed to be her final word on it as she went back to cracking a few more eggs into the skillet. The sound of the sizzling yolks coming into contact with the bacon grease followed Mal out into the living room as she went in search of the man who had say over her day's activities. Opening the front door, she stepped out into the cool, still air and looked towards the porch swing.

Grandpa sat there, a shadow in the pre-dawn light. Steam rose out of his coffee cup as he turned to look at her before taking a sip.

"Grandpa, do I have to miss school? The weatherman last night said it was supposed to be nice today," she said, getting right to the heart of the matter as she moved to sit next to him.

He was quiet for a few moments as he savored his coffee, then he took a deep breath and spoke. "Smell that, Jelly Bean?"

"Smell what?"

"Well," he paused for a moment. "Do you feel how still the air is this morning? How the air is chilled against your face?" he temporized.

She thought about it and then nodded, "Yeah?"

"Well, if you take a deep breath and smell the air, you won't smell the normal things like the hay or the cows or the chickens. You'll smell how crisp and clean it is, how it feels cold, almost to the point that it hurts deep inside your nose, like when you drink something too cold too fast." He paused, as if waiting for her to try it.

Looking up at him dubiously, she knew he would never make her do something that was stupid or without reason, or anything that would hurt her. So she took a slow, deep breath. Normally, on a morning like this, she could smell the manure, hay, even the the dirt in the fields. Today there wasn't any of that and after taking the deep breath, she felt the sharp pang of discomfort inside her nose.

She was quiet for a time, doing it again as they watched the sky begin to brighten to the east. That was when she noticed that the only sound she could hear was the slight squeak of the chains that held the porch swing to the roof above them. The cows in the pasture nearby were mostly silent, only making slight grunting noises now and then as they fed. Turning her head a little, she saw the horses were close to the barn with their heads up, ears twitching and nostrils flaring as if they too were scenting something in the air.

Finally, she looked back at him. "It smells different. And there's no noise either. Everything's quiet. Why's that?" she asked. She saw the look of pride in his eyes as he smiled.

"Well, Jelly Bean, always remember that smell, and that when the air gets cold and still like this and the animals go all quiet, it means snow's coming. You'll see today how the wind will begin to pick up. First, the tall tree tops will begin to sway heavily, but there won't seem to be any wind on the ground. Then you'll begin to feel a light breeze that will get stronger with time and that's when you should be looking to the horizon for the tall wall of dark clouds. By then you should have your animals counted and put away and all of your preparations made because the snow will be on you before you know it."

She was quiet for a time, thinking about how the wind seemed to never stop blowing around here, even if it was just a light breeze. With no wind moving this morning, it seemed almost spooky. Looking out over the farm, she turned her gaze back up at her grandpa, hoping he'd tell her more. She wasn't disappointed.

"Back when I was a little boy, my grandfather claimed it was the smell of death. That was before they had things like gas furnaces and grocery stores on every corner or even cars and trucks. If you weren't prepared for snowstorms with wood for your fires stacked up by the back doors and canned food in the pantries, feed for the animals and ropes to and from the out buildings to guide you when it was snowing and blowing so hard you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, you could easily die. So you learned to tell the signs of when a snowstorm was coming. And I think we'll have one by late afternoon, if not sooner."

The front door squeaked as her grandma poked her head outside, "Breakfast, you two."

Her grandpa reached over and ruffled her hair, "Come on, Jelly Bean. Time to eat. Got a busy day ahead of us."

* * *

"Some claimed it was the smell of death…."

The words echoed in her dreams, as Mal slowly pulled herself from the clutches of sleep. She shivered, feeling chilled even with Chris curled around her in their combined sleeping bags, with their cloaks piled on top. It was only in times like this, the rare scouting missions she went on, that she and Chris shared a tent. He couldn't show anyone more directly that a bond existed between them if he went publicly to one knee and asked her to marry him. When they were together, she tried to savor every moment of it she could, for she never knew when she'd have another chance at being alone with him, or even if another would ever come.

She wanted to snuggle down deeper into his arms for what little bit of warmth she could find but her nose twitched and she sneaked a hand up and rubbed it. It wasn't time to get up yet and they had a hard day of walking ahead of them if they were to reach their goal by nightfall.

She sniffed again and froze. The words came echoing back at her again from the depths of her memories, "Smell that, Jelly Bean?"

Pulling the covers off her face and exposing her head to the cold air, she opened her eyes to stare up at the dark tent roof. She took in a slow breath and then sat straight up. "Oh shit. No, no, no. Not now," she whispered to herself.

She heard Chris shift next to her. "Wha'?" he mumbled, rousing a little, as he always did when Mal sensed danger.

Mal turned her head a little to see his shadowed shape sit up. "We need to pack up and get moving, now. We've got a snowstorm coming," she said flatly, no room for argument in her voice. As she spoke she was attempting to untangle herself from their sleeping bags. Pulling on her cloak, she crawled outside to survey the sky and land around them.

The air felt brisk against her face, but there was no movement in the upper tree tops, not even a hint of a light morning breeze along the ground. The early morning sky was a beautiful pale blue and pink quartz with dawn barely on the horizon.

Catching the scent again, Mal hurried from tent to tent and stuck her head inside, gripping and holding onto the first foot she could find, speaking with a firm but calm voice.

"Get up. Snowstorm's coming. Break camp."

By the time she reached Lennox' and Carlos' tent, they were already outside. "Snow's coming. Break camp, pack up," she ordered and gave them no second thought as she went about getting her own tent packed up. Chris headed toward the transport vehicle to begin securing it with tarps for protection during their absence.

As she pulled the remainder of her tent apart, the tops of the trees began to sway in a languid breeze. Looking around at the sleepy, uncertain expressions on the rest of the team, she snapped, "Come on, let's get a move on! Dun and white cloaks, packs covered up. Just because we've got a storm rolling in doesn't mean we throw caution to the wind just yet. Get your ropes out and secure them to your packs. We'll need them when the snow really starts blowing."

"But how do you know we've got a storm rolling in?" whined Kurt. Peggy, their civil engineer, nodded in agreement to his question.

"Experience. Get moving and help Thomas with your tent. Now's not a time to question me, Kurt." She wasn't sure about Thomas' choice to bring him along but if he felt the kid needed to come, then so be it. Unfortunately, he'd done nothing but complain the entire trip.

She saw Peggy looking dubiously at her but the woman hurried her steps to finish the task at hand, helping her tent partner, Shawn Michaels, pack up their gear.

As she turned away, glancing towards the tree tops to see them swaying more enthusiastically, she spotted Lennox and Carlos pulling their packs on over their cloaks. Carlos looked at a map and pointed off towards the northwest as they began to move off in that direction.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Lennox stopped and turned to look at her. "We're going to try and get a head start to get as many miles towards Utah as possible before this storm hits."

She stood there, staring at him dumbfounded for a moment, not believing what she was hearing. "No, you won't. You'll be traveling with us down into the valley."

Lennox's eyes flashed with something close to anger and he took a step forward, "That wasn't part of the deal. We were to go with you to this point and then break off to head to our base camp. So we're going to start walking toward our group in hopes of getting to them before they're snowed in for the winter."

She shook her head. "I don't care what you 'think' you're going to do. This storm is coming right out of the direction you're heading. You'll be lucky to get fifteen miles before you'll have to find shelter, and that's if you can find any. Your people are probably already under a foot of snow, if not more. You're not going, and that's final."

Carlos and Lennox stared at her as she stood there, arms crossed, not willing to give an inch on this. Lennox being Lennox, he tried again. "But, we need..."

"You agreed to take my orders and follow our rules when you joined us. Now get those packs off and help tear down the rest of camp. We're going to have to go over the rim of the valley, down to the generators, and I need everyone on their toes."

"You can't do this." Lennox tried one last time, anger in his voice.

"Don't make me have to shoot you," snapped Mal, her eyes flashing. "Because I will still make you hike down to that valley with a bullet wound."

That was all it took to convince Carlos to take off his pack, though a slight smile played at the corner of his lips: he thought that perhaps Lennox had just met his match. Lennox was used to giving orders, not taking them.

Lennox's jaw continued to work. "Fine, but as soon as this clears, we're heading out of here and up to our camp." There would be time enough later to have a bit of a "discussion" about this decision.

Mal turned her back on him at that point, having won the argument. As she went back to packing, a light breeze began to blow across the ground, driving the cold air down her neck, with the promise of more misery to come.

* * *

"Madre de Dios!" whispered Carlos, who was standing next to Mal. He crossed himself, and Mal silently agreed with him. If she'd been Catholic and still believed in God, now would be a good time to be making such a gesture.

They'd reached the valley rim an hour after camp broke. Snow was now falling sporadically but they could tell by how dark and heavy the clouds were hanging that it would only be a matter of time before it would be hard to see more than a few feet in front of their faces.

The daunting task ahead of them, or rather below them, was to traverse the slope down a valley that appeared steeper than expected. As they scanned the surrounding hillside, nowhere else looked much better and there were places that looked almost cliff-like.

Pulling out the map of the area, Mal motioned to the others to huddle around her as she clung to it with gloved hands to keep it from blowing away in the strong winds. Once all seven of them had closed in around her, she set the map on the ground and weighted it with rocks.

"We're here," she pointed to a spot on the map. "The original plan was to walk this road here," she said, pointing to a tiny line farther north on the map, "down into the crater. It was going to take us all day in good weather. But we don't have all day from the looks of things."

She was silent for a moment as several of them looked at the map while others looked around the surrounding area, fat flakes beginning to fall with more consistency.

"So now comes the question, what do we do? Do we go over here to come down right on top of the housing for the generators? Do we walk the rim trying to find a better place to descend? Or do we walk the road and hope we can make it by nightfall?"

She looked to the others for input. She might be their leader, but this was just a little out of her depth, and she had at least one person here who might be better equipped to answer the question of what to do next.

Lennox glanced up her as he turned the map towards himself and looked over what he could make out before pointing to where they were. "I think we're going to have our best chance of getting down right where we are. We'll need to rope up. Does anyone else have climbing experience? We'll need to have a lead and an anchor."

Chris cleared his throat, "I used to do search and rescue on the side. I'm trained in rappelling and climbing."

Mel blinked up at him, raising an eyebrow. He'd never divulged that information before.

Lennox nodded, "Alright. I'll take lead. Chris, you're the anchor."

Mal looked around at the expectant faces that were staring back at her. "Take off your packs, flip your cloaks white side out and put them in close to your body. If you have extra shirts or sweats, take a moment to layer your clothes. Belt your packs over the top of your cloaks. If there's a problem, you can dump your pack fast to lighten the load. Plus it'll trap your body heat closer to you and keep you from tripping on your cloak. "

It didn't take long for everyone to offload their packs and dig for clothing, pulling on extra shirts and pants as the snow began to fall in earnest.

Chris and Lennox went from person to person, securing ropes and giving last minute instructions on how to follow the person in front of them downhill, how to communicate through the lines and what to do in case they fell, or the person next to them did.

Mal was hitched up in the middle next to Kurt, as they were the two lightest individuals of the team. She looked over at the young man, saw him shivering hard, and knew it was from more than the cold.

She reached an arm around his neck and pulled him close. "It'll be okay. We'll make it down safe. Just use that brain of yours and you'll do fine."

"I'm scared of heights, Mal!" he squeaked, fear pitching his voice higher.

"I'm afraid of heights too, but I won't let that stop me," she said loudly, to be heard over the growing noise of the wind. "Now come on. I'm sure there's a whole bank of computers down there with your name on them, and power to run them, too."

He stared dumbly at her for a moment, nodded then followed her to the edge of the rim. She hoped she'd given him something else to think about as they began to descend a steep hillside that was beginning to accumulate its first snow of the season.

* * *

The mad scramble down into the valley was one that Mal knew would haunt her dreams for years to come. It was relatively easy for the first thousand yards, a gentle slope that was covered with scrub and a few stubborn trees.

But then the nightmare began. Crumbling rock under their feet upon the steeper inclines caused them to lose their footing time and again as things that couldn't be seen shifted under the snow. The snow was wet, heavy and slick once packed down, making it more treacherous for those towards the back of the line who slipped and slid several times over the pathway cut by those in front of them.

Towards the bottom of the valley, the landscape began to slope into rolling hills covered with ancient wind-swept pines, giving the team some minor protection from the wind.

It was hard to judge time or the hour of the day. The sun was still up since everything around them was visibly white, but the snow coated and washed out the rest of the world.

"Stop the line!" hollered Mal into the wind and the call was repeated several times around her. She felt them stagger to a halt and she could make out the panting breaths and groans of the exhausted party as they closed in around her. Everyone took the reprieve to rub knees or some appendage that had taken damage on the trip down.

Mal checked her compass with shaking, gloved hands and did her best to gauge where they were. Pointing south, she looked at the exhausted faces around her. "We need to head that way. I know it's hard to see anything but we need to stay sharp, on the lookout for some kind of concrete embankment with a door, road sign, vent pipes, something to indicate we've hit our mark. It'll be to the west, against the valley wall, according to the schematics we found."

No one spoke as they nodded. "We need to stay roped up. With these blizzard conditions, I don't want to chance losing anyone. Chris, you take lead, Lennox, you're anchor now. You were great. Thank you."

Lennox nodded and looked grateful to trade places with Chris. On his way past, Mal handed Chris her map and the compass.

"Alright everyone, forward. March!" Chris called once he was secured to the front. The line stumbled to a start. Within a few minutes, Mal found it hard not to become numb with the cold and the surrounding white landscape and had to repeatedly shake herself out of a stupor.

Mal was about to call another halt to check their surroundings when she stumbled over a jutting rock, jarring her sore body.

"Shit," she growled to herself. She kept moving forward on instinct, too tired to do much else.

She heard Peggy behind her curse as she too hit the same rock, but the older woman landed on her hands and knees.

"Stop the line!" shouted Mal ahead of her.

The call was carried as Thomas helped Peggy to her feet.

"Are we there yet?" mumbled Shawn.

Chris came into view, looking utterly exhausted. He had been breaking the trail through the deeper snow that had begun drifting in the increased wind, some of the drifts now above his knees. "I think we've hit the road. I'm not sure but the feel of the ground is different than what we were walking on just a few yards back."

This statement revived the few of them who had looked like they would have preferred to lie down right there. "Eyes sharp, people. If we've come to the road, we can't be far now," Mal said.

"I think I see something," shouted Carlos, pointing off to the southwest. "For a moment I thought I saw something that looked man-made over there."

Mal looked to Chris to find him looking to her for direction. She nodded, giving him permission to lead them that way. Little else was said, since no one had the energy left to do more than put one foot in front of the other.

Straining their eyes into the blowing snow in hopes of catching a glimpse of what Carlos had seen, Kurt finally pointed in the same direction. "I see it too!"

This made everyone quicken their pace. It took only a few more misery-laden minutes before they stood at the base of a short set of concrete steps that ended at a door inset into a half-domed archway.

Untying herself from the line, Mal staggered up the steps. Looking the door over, she saw a handle that was used to pull it door open, but no visible lock. She reached forward and gave it a tug but it remained steadfast.

"Kurt!" she yelled.

Within moments, the young man was standing next to her, panting. "What is it?" he asked, squinting at the door.

"There's got to be a way in here, most likely a keycard entry or coded keypad, something. Help me look," she said as she began to run her hands over the snow encrusted rock around the doorframe.

Kurt quickly joined the search and within moments began frantically dusting something off. "Found it!" he called excitedly.

Turning, she joined him as the others came up the stairs to crowd around on the first two steps. "Can you get us in?" she asked, looking dubiously at the slot meant for swiping magnetic cards for access.

Kurt leaned in to get a better look at the key slot. "I think so."

"Fine. What do you need from us?" asked Mal, trying to hurry the young man along.

"Gear from my pack, protection from the snow and wind, and light," replied Kurt as he continued to squint at the little piece of electronic gadgetry.

"All right everyone. Help me clear the landing of snow. I need a tent, a lantern and a flashlight. Then I want everyone up here, squeezed in and covered up with the tent canvas over our heads to give some protection so Kurt can work. It won't be much but it's better than standing out here in the open."

She didn't have to say anything else. People were already beginning to use their gloved hands to scrape and scoop away snow from the steps and top landing. As soon as the area was cleared, Mal pulled Kurt's pack off, setting it in front of him as everyone huddled and squeezed onto the top landing.

The edges of someone's tent was handed to Mal who stood over Kurt and she pulled it over her head and held on as the wind tried to pull it from their hands until it was finally secured.

A flashlight was handed forward to Mal as well as a lit lantern. She handed the flashlight to Thomas who stood closest to Kurt and could shine it on his work.

Kurt dug around in his pack and came up with a magnetic key card that had cables attached to one end of it that ran to a box with a digital readout. With a whispered prayer, Kurt switched on the box. It gave a warbling beep but the little screen finally lit.

"It's cold, and so are the batteries," explained Kurt.

"We're all cold, Kurt. Just do what you can," Mal said, trying to hurry him along.

Ducking his head a little in embarrassment at Mal's statement of the obvious, he turned and slid the card into the slot. She watched as he began to press buttons on the box. Numbers began to scroll by at an alarming rate on the little readout. First one, then two numbers stopped in the electronic readout and as the next one in the sequence stopped, the encoded number got longer and longer.

Everyone seemed to be watching, holding their breath as a large gust of wind threatened to tear the tent from their fingers.

At the sixteenth number there was a deep thudding click from the door and Mal quickly reached for the handle and yanked. It popped open, causing her to grunt a little with effort as hinges protested slightly.

"Yes!" exclaimed Kurt as he yanked the key card from the slot on the wall and grabbed up his pack.

Mal pulled the door all the way open and Thomas shined the flashlight inside.

There was a short set of metal-grate stairs that ended at what looked like a walkway.

"Everyone inside, now!" called Mal as she stood holding the door.

No one had to be told twice; everyone shoved their way in out of the elements. She was the last one in, holding the lantern and letting the door shut behind them. As soon as it did, she heard the lock reengage.

Holding the lantern up, she saw that the walkway went further south, but terminated where they stood. Next to the door was a bank of switches and taking a chance, she flipped them all into the "on" position. Nothing seemed to happen.

Thomas shined his flashlight down the walkway. Every few hundred feet a heavy steel door broke the blankness, the first not more than twenty feet from them.

"All right everyone. Get out your lanterns. We need to find a place to hole up for awhile, get some rest and some food into us," said Mal as she came down the steps to join the others.

Chris cleared his throat. "Is it getting lighter in here or is it just me?"

Mal turned and looked around and then up. Above them were sodium lights that were slowly beginning to warm up, their filaments glowing a dull orange color.

"I'll be damned," said Lennox under his breath.

"Come on, everyone. Let's see if these doors open." Mal approached the door closest to them, reached out and turned the handle. It moved smoothly and the door popped open without a sound.

"And behind door number one?" called out Shawn from the rear of the group.

Giving a little snort of amusement, Mal pulled it open wider. Holding the lantern up to cast light inside, she stood frozen in the door way, trying to comprehend what she saw. Stepping into what lay beyond, she triggered a motion sensor and the lights of the hallway came up to a soft warm glow.

She expected to see any number of things from a utility closet to another hallway with metal grating. What she didn't expect to see was a plush carpeted floor with multiple wooden doors on either side.

"Holy shit," were the only words she could think to say.

She felt the others crowd in through the doorway behind her and from her left her she heard Carlos speak, altering his voice to sound like Rod Serling. "You are about to enter another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. Next stop, the Twilight Zone!"

TBC -


End file.
